I’d certainly like to see greater attention and resources for mental health; but(with our present state of knowledge) ‘fixing’ pedophilia just doesn’t appear to work any better than ‘fixing’ homosexuality(or, though nobody really tries, ‘seducing’ heterosexuals into the gay lifestyle.
Most of the research has been done on orientations considered deviant; because you can get away with that; but the results have been uniformly unimpressive, despite the application of methods far beyond the pale of medical ethics. Team Jesus has tried pretty much everything there is to try when it comes to guilt, shame, and social pressure; and various medical and quasi-medical experiments with hormones, electrical brain stimulation(the…somewhat alarming…career of Dr. Robert Heath at Tulane isn’t for the faint of heart), etc.)
It’d be nice if it were a fixable condition(for the pedophile as well, while their potential dangerousness leads them to be demonized; having zero legitimate sexual outlets has to suck for them too); but so far, the results just aren’t encouraging.
Well… There are treatments that “work” more or less, if success is gauged by the proportion who go on to have sex with children, post-treatment. But as you said they’re all, at best, inhumane and unethical.
Something not fixable is still manageable. Most mental health problems aren’t “curable,” but people develop strategies to manage them so that they can live a life with minimal disruption. There’s ways to manage sexual attraction, without pretending it doesn’t exist.
Any police officer who kills, sexually assaults, paralyzes, abuses or otherwise harms in any way beyond the minimum amount of force necessary to remove the threat to himself and/or the people that he is sworn to protect and serve should be blamed and punished for it at least as severely as if he were a civilian.
That being said, we have two options to fix the problem: we can either abolish the police force, or we can change their attitudes.
Without electing a libertarian government, (which has been tried, repeatedly, by the Libertarian party, and hasn’t worked, so calls for electing libertarians should be weighed in the overly optimistic light of this futility), no one is ever going to abolish the police force.
Since abolition isn’t going to work, we need to fix their attitudes. We need to get to a place where police and civilians treat each other with respect. The vast majority of that work needs to be done on the legislative side, by fixing the underlying problems that cause crime, by making sure that police are held accountable for their actions, by changing their mandate from “tough on crime” and “war on drugs” to “serve and protect.”
However, you can’t legislate how someone feels about the people they are supposed to “serve and protect.” The relationship needs to be changed from an adversarial one to a cooperative one on both sides.
I am not saying that civilians are responsible for the actions of police. I am not saying that disrespectful civilians deserve to be mistreated. I am not saying that we shouldn’t take other measures to reform the police.
All that I am saying is: since we can’t (and in my opinion, shouldn’t) abolish the police, then if we want to get to a place where there is respect on both sides, your attitude IS NOT HELPING.THAT IS ALL.
Let’s say that a plane crashes due to pilot error, and there are three survivors - the pilot and two passengers - stranded on an island. If one of the passengers reams out both of the other two survivors for not cooperating to get them all off of the island, he’s not victim-blaming the other passenger. Yes, the pilot is also being uncooperative, yes, it’s a bad situation, and yes, it’s the pilot’s fault that they’re in that situation. However, in order to get out of that situation, you need the pilot’s cooperation, so antagonizing him is not helpful. That is all that I am saying.
Yes, I think for the individuals personally affected by this situation, it’s a much more certain, over-and-done outcome.
But what about everyone else? I, for one, am left with the feeling that the only way the very real and very large problem of police criminal misconduct is ever “resolved” is if the LEO dies (one way or another). They never seem to be held accountable in a court of law. There doesn’t seem to be any media coverage saying “this was bad, s/he was found guilty, justice was served”. Nope, the only way this kind of story has an end is if the perpetrator ends up dead.
I call anglocentric bullshit.
The idea of police forces to keep up public order evolved in non-English-speaking countries as well. Evolution happened mostly in parallel. Pointing out what other bad things were done in America or England in the name of public order before a proper police force was established, does not invalidate the concept itself.
Did I seem at all forgiving of what he was doing to kids? “wanting to inflict that kind of pain and humility on a kid is warped.” My point exactly is that this kind of thing is allowed to happen with the blessing of the legal system that allowed him to gain a warrant to inject the boy! The legal system was willing to aid him in his perversion! The man himself had no way to seek help for his own twisted inclinations even if he had ever wanted to. “I’m not offering pity or excuses for him, rather it’s just sad for all of society.” If you read that as giving any kind of support for him then it’s is my lack of communication skills but not my intent to overlook his deeds. For what it’s worth I am a licensed professional working with the Federal Prison System with these very offenders many of whom were themselves victimized and never afforded therapy or justice. The man was a vicious predator loose in society with the blessing of a badge and the joke of a legal system supporting him. I hope that clarifies my feelings.
Germany has a system of help open to people who feel that they my have pedophilic urges/inclinations. The person can openly and easily seek help without fear of being turned over to the police. I don’t know how they handle a person who may have acted on their feelings but at least it’s an open topic about ways to deal with your issues before they get out of control and start hurting kids. Sort of seems reasonable.
Teen gets accused of doing something that should be nobody else’s business.
A cop has a crazy, demeaning idea of how to determine whether the accused actually did the thing that should be nobody else’s business.
Somebody else seriously entertains the possibility of going along with the cop’s idea for more than a second.
Cop gets publicly shamed for that idea.
Cop keeps his job.
Teen gets put on probation for having done nothing wrong.
Cop molests one or more younger children (I’ll just assume he’s guilty until proven innocent)
Cop gets caught.
Cop commits suicide, because his life is over anyway after having been accused of that.
Now, I like #8. Everything else on this list is horribly wrong.
If you’re wondering why #9 is wrong: First, a life is a life, and second, people accused of having murdered someone don’t usually feel the need to commit suicide. Society considers molestation to be far worse than murder. And that’s a seriously skewed perspective.
Public shaming in the internet age is completely out of control. It works by the same logic as a lynch mob. We can be 100% sure that no one, ever, gets the amount of public shame that they deserve. It’s way to easy to overshoot the to completely ignore other perpetrators that are equally guilty, which is bad, as there should be equality before the law (and before the mob).
It is a punishment inflicted by the mob without any due process - most of the people joining in the mob will not have bothered to check whether that proposal was made as an ill-considered public statement, as a serious proposal, or as a bad joke.
Public shaming is done by a loud minority, so it often lacks democratic legitimacy.
Public shaming can lead to random internet death threats to a person. Public shaming affects different people in vastly different ways. Some will not even notice, while others are driven to suicide. Public shaming has no expiration date, at least no predictable one.
Public shaming campaigns are the pitchfork-wielding lynch mobs of the internet age. Of course, I don’t doubt that the pitchfork-wielding lynch mobs of the past didn’t only catch witches and people who dared to have dark skin, but instead also managed to catch real murderers. But still, I am of the opinion that replacing righteous lynch mobs with corrupt police forces was generally a good move for civilization.
Euthanizing the victims of abuse would solve that problem, leading to a situation no worse than murder.
I don’t think that euthanizing victims would improve their situation, therefore abuse is not worse than murder.
Also, soliciting pornographic pics from a minor is a kind of abuse, too, and at least half of the trauma caused by that hinges on how our society views sex & nudity.
